T-Mobile, Sprint merger review widens in California

It seems someone jumped the gun at the California Public Utilities Commission, and prematurely sent out a ruling defining the scope of California’s regulatory review of T-Mobile’s proposed purchase of Sprint. On Thursday, the commissioner in charge of the inquiry, Clifford Rechtschaffen, issued an amended version of the “scoping memo” he released the week before, saying the first one “was mailed in error”.

There are several wordsmithing changes in the updated version, and a few that are more substantive. One big change is a broad, up front statement making it clear that there are no particular limits to what the review will cover…

The scope of this proceeding includes all issues that are relevant to evaluating the proposed merger’s impacts on California consumers and determining whether any conditions should be placed upon the merged entity.

Additions to the specific, but “non-exhaustive” list of items that will be covered include consideration of potential new services the combined company might offer and – for both new and existing services – the impact on communities and regions, as well as California a whole.

The net result is that the focus (if you want to call it that) of Rechtschaffen’s investigation is even wider than before. It won’t be limited to a few specific and largely technical issues, as T-Mobile and Sprint had hoped.

The original schedule called for a final decision by next June. The core of the new schedule tracks with the original one, but the beginning of public hearings over the next two or three months, and the final wrap up next spring (or maybe summer?) are more indeterminate. Instead of the CPUC voting on a final decision in “June 2019”, the schedule calls for that to happen in “2nd Quarter 2019”. Given the way decisions are drafted, reviewed and then put on the commission’s agenda, June is still a reasonable bet. But it might happen sooner. Or later – CPUC timelines have been known to slip.